Underneath the Undeath [DM: Voda Vosa; Judge: ?]

[Dekana]

Ilse walks to Alek and kneels down to speak to him. She speaks softly to his corpse, her face melancholy.

"I'm sorry... I wish we could take you back with us, but we need to hurry out before the skeletons return. At least we can give you a burial here, thanks to the explosives. ... Farewell."

She then prepares to light the explosives once everyone is ready to run.

 

[WEContact]

Logan nods his assent, poised to run.

 

[jbear]

[MENTION=51271]Voda Vosa[/MENTION] Are we waiting on something?

 

[Voda Vosa]

OOC: For me to return from a work trip. Sorry for not giving heads up, I'll get the update tomorrow.

 

[Voda Vosa]

The group sets the charges on the pillars, and takes cover behind the turn in the mine.
The explosion shakes the whole mine, mortar falling from the ceiling, and a couple of rocks sliding to the floor. A cloud of dust envelopes the party a split second later, making it impossible to see and almost breath. As the dust settles down, the group moves to the room again. The above portion of the room had collapsed, and a golden bounty of gold and treasures is scattered among the rubble. The group moves to capitalize their deeds, but as they gather a few items, the mine shudders again. Seems like the structure won't hold for long. Almost immediately, part of the roof of the corridor starts collapsing!
The group must make a swift escape before they get buried alive!



The final skill challenge: Greedy escape!

This will be a bit complicated:
Your goal is to escape alive, for that you must run for your lives and get out of the mine before it collapses on your head. You can use either athletic, acrobatic or endurance each round to see how much you run, how much rocks you dodge, or how do you endure the rocks that fall on your head! Additional skills can grant you bonuses if you explain their use good.
The greedy part is this: You had time to grab 3 items and your share of gold (time gold+reward gold) before the mine started shaking. These items impose no penalty, however, you can choose to grab more items and gold, but that will not only delay your escape, but also will weight you down, imposing a penalty to your main rolls. Each additional item you grab will be a -1, each 500 gp you grab will be a -1 as well, and they are cumulative and affect all your main rolls.
Main DC are 16, you need to get 6 successes. For each failure on a main skill roll, you loose one item or 200 gp, determined by you.

 

[WEContact]

OOC: So wait, even if we don't try to get any bonus treasure we have to pass 6 consecutive moderate/hard skill checks just to keep the adventure's base gold reward? Or will we be getting the expected gold per level at the end of the adventure when Vermitrax gives us our cut of the treasure from the lich's mausoleum? If the latter is the case that's fine, but if not then this skill challenge needs to be way easier. A moderate DC for a L1 PC is 12, none of us are going to make 6 in a row, and few of us will make more than half of them. Poor Ilse. That said there's one other thing I don't understand: How much is (time gold+reward gold)? When you say items, do you mean magic items? Can we choose which magic items we grab? I assume they can't be over our level+4?

 

[jbear]

[sblock=OOC]I have a slight problem with this. But first a question:

Do you mean each of us need to make six separate skill rolls each? Or 1 each as a group?

As written it makes more sense that you are asking us to make 6 rolls each, otherwise this would only last 1 round as there are 6 characters left in the game (although only 4 players).

So assuming you mean for this to last 6 rounds with each of us making a roll each round lets look at the maths:

1) Each of us would be engaging in an individual complexity 2 skill challenge (6 successes needed).
2) The typical DCs for this type of challenge FOR A GROUP is 5 moderate; 1 difficult
3) DC 16 is a MODERATE DC for level 7 & 8 characters
4) So each of us is basically engaging in a Level 7 complexity 2 challenge which would be worth 600 xp each
5) My character has training in one of those main skills giving him +7 endurance; No other skills make sense in helping out this bonus. So we are talking about a 55% chance of rolling a success each turn; Which means a 45% chance to fail, greater if I take extra loot. Even if I take no loot I have a very high chance of losing treasure which by L4W rules is due to my character no matter what happens.
6) My character is level 3, so I am better off than everyone else, and I am not looking too good.
7) Pg. 26 of Rules Compendium: "In group checks or when every adventurer in the party is expected to attempt a given skill check, particularly when no one necessarily has training, an easy DC is the standard choice for the scenario."
8) If there was danger Boris would left before the explosion, never seeing the fallen treasure. He would have made it out safely easily. He would expect treasure from Vermitrax upon his return. I would expect the same amount of treasure we could potentially lose at the end of the adventure with NO RISK of losing it.
9) If following the Rules Compendiums guidelines, Easy DC 16 would be a lvl 16 skill challenge...

So I guess it is more than a slight problem.

I will wait for your reply before engaging in the challenge.
[/sblock]

 

[WEContact]

OOC: I want to add, and I think @jbear would agree, (we always seem to agree on things anyways) that we're by no means unhappy with your DMing, and this is a cool idea that could be a lot more fun than "the party leaves here is your gold/exp." Skill challenges are hard to put together well, though, and in this case things turned out pretty unfair for us PCs. We don't want you to scrap it, just lower the stakes and tweak it so that there's a better chance to succeed. Maybe set a hard minimum for how much treasure we come out with (perhaps by having this challenge just be for bonus gold, and pay out the time gold+adventure reward when we meet up with Vermitrax), lower the amount of treasure we can take, and lower the DC to 10 or 12? We can divide the treasure we carry out evenly amongst ourselves afterwards so that player disparities don't matter so much, ie so Ilse doesn't wind up getting way less treasure than Boris.

 

[Voda Vosa]

Or will we be getting the expected gold per level at the end of the adventure when Vermitrax gives us our cut of the treasure from the lich's mausoleum?

This, you will only loose additional gold or magic items.

That said there's one other thing I don't understand: How much is (time gold+reward gold)? When you say items, do you mean magic items? Can we choose which magic items we grab? I assume they can't be over our level+4?

Yes you can choose from any magic item on your wishlist.

Do you mean each of us need to make six separate skill rolls each?

This


4) So each of us is basically engaging in a Level 7 complexity 2 challenge which would be worth 600 xp each Aha
5) My character has training in one of those main skills giving him +7 endurance; No other skills make sense in helping out this bonus.
You can use whatever skill to aid yourself or the party, just be creative and you can get a free +2 bonus, there is no penalty for a failed aid roll. I forgot to add this to the skill challenge description, but if you want to aid the whole party, increase the DC from 10 to 12.
6) My character is level 3, so I am better off than everyone else, and I am not looking too good.
No, because you don't have a main trained skill for the challenge. But with a +2 from aid rolls you'll do good.
7) Pg. 26 of Rules Compendium: "In group checks or when every adventurer in the party is expected to attempt a given skill check, particularly when no one necessarily has training, an easy DC is the standard choice for the scenario." Well, this is by no means a standard scenario.
8) If there was danger Boris would left before the explosion, never seeing the fallen treasure. He would have made it out safely easily. He would expect treasure from Vermitrax upon his return. I would expect the same amount of treasure we could potentially lose at the end of the adventure with NO RISK of losing it.
I disagree, even if you didn't collect treasure, you would have save yourself one roll at best, and would get no magic items. You can if you want leave the others setting the charge as you make your way out, you would still get gold.

OOC: I want to add, and I think @jbear would agree, (we always seem to agree on things anyways) that we're by no means unhappy with your DMing, and this is a cool idea that could be a lot more fun than "the party leaves here is your gold/exp." Skill challenges are hard to put together well, though, and in this case things turned out pretty unfair for us PCs. We don't want you to scrap it, just lower the stakes and tweak it so that there's a better chance to succeed. Maybe set a hard minimum for how much treasure we come out with (perhaps by having this challenge just be for bonus gold, and pay out the time gold+adventure reward when we meet up with Vermitrax), lower the amount of treasure we can take, and lower the DC to 10 or 12? We can divide the treasure we carry out evenly amongst ourselves afterwards so that player disparities don't matter so much, ie so Ilse doesn't wind up getting way less treasure than Boris.

I appreciate the compliment, I was never good at being constrained by rules, and love skill challenges since they give a lot of creative alternatives for cinematic scenes. There are several options for this encounter, so I will not lower the difficulty. Mainly, you can use the gold you grab for safety reasons, remember they impose a -1 for each 500 stack you grab, but you can save yourself from a fail roll with a 200 stack. Supporting cast (Zaroch and Kurnos) will be trying to aid the group, providing +2 bonuses. Unless everyone rolls horribly, I think you can capitalize and get a huge amount of magic items of your choice.

 

[WEContact]

This, you will only loose additional gold or magic items.

OOC: Well that's totally fine then

Chambers spends a few extra moments gathering likely looking booty, and makes for the exit. He and Kurnos lead the way, keeping a sharp eye out for warning signs of additional cave-ins, while Zaroch relies on his recollection of this mine and his knowledge of its construction to keep the party from making wrong turns or finding dead ends.

OOC: Group Aid Anothers DC 12: Kurnos, Perception 15 Zaroch, History 18 Chambers, Perception 15 Chambers Round 1 Athletics Check (-4 extra items): 21, PASS